It’s never good news when initial unemployment claims climb, but the new figures out this morning are better than expected and are still near a five-year low:

The number of people who applied for new unemployment benefits rose by 5,000 to 333,000 in the week ended Aug. 3, but the level of initial claims remained close to a five-year low in a possible sign of some improvement in the U.S. labor market. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch expected claims to climb to 339,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis. The average of new claims over the past month, a more reliable gauge than the volatile weekly number, fell by 6,250 to 335,500 to the lowest level since November 2007.

ThinkProgress: These Six States Want To Allow Health Insurers To Deny Coverage To Sick People

Officials in Texas and five other GOP-led states are refusing to oversee even Obamacare’s most basic — and popular — consumer protections and insurance market reforms. That includes the law’s ban on denying coverage or charging more because of a pre-existing condition and discriminating against women on the basis of gender. The decision could present major hurdles to Americans who buy health insurance through federally-run marketplaces in the Lone Star State, Arizona, Alabama, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Wyoming.

Watch “Serve” highlighting the incredible story of Alejandro Morales, a young undocumented immigrant who was brought to the United States when he was only seven months old. Alejandro was the highest ranking cadet in Chicago JROTC and his biggest dream is to serve his county in the U.S. Marines. He is an American; this is the only country he’s ever known. He wants to serve and protect his country, but our broken immigration system prevents him from doing so because he is an undocumented immigrant:

The chances that comprehensive immigration reform will ever pass the House are very slim. However, the easy conventional wisdom about what’s happening now — which holds that the conservative base controls the outcome completely, that the death of reform is preordained, and that House Republicans are only looking for a way to kill reform blamelessly — is overly simplistic and is increasingly looking like it’s just wrong.

To understand what’s really happening, the key question to ask is: Are House Republicans just playing for time, or are they actually grappling with the issue of immigration reform and what to do about the 11 million undocumented immigrants?

ThinkProgress: How A Powerful Group Of Corporations Quietly Tried To Roll Back Clean Energy Standards, And Failed Miserably

When the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, wants a law passed, the law typically gets passed.

The organization is known for helping to advance corporate interests by writing and then pushing to pass conservative legislation at the state level. With funding to the tune of $500,000 from billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch’s foundations from 2005-2011, and $1.4 million from Exxon Mobil this past decade, it shouldn’t be a surprise that ALEC has had many successes in its 40 years of existence. ALEC has most notably pushed “Stand Your Ground” and “Right-to-Work” legislation through state legislatures across the country. The organization has also created model legislation with intended loopholes that allow energy companies to withhold names of certain chemicals used during hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

This year ALEC decided to prioritize the dismantling of states’ renewable energy standards and targets across the country. Their record? 0 for 13. In the states where ALEC and its members sought to repeal or weaken renewable energy standards or targets, not a single bill passed in 2013….

Aug. 8, 2010 – Pete Souza: “The President has made several trips to Walter Reed Army Medical Center and several other hospitals to visit wounded soldiers and personally award Purple Heart medals. Although I do take photographs of him meeting these soldiers, we make these pictures only available to the soldiers themselves. Here, he’s about to enter the room of a wounded soldier who received a Purple Heart.”

NBC has rejected an ad opposing the Keystone XL pipeline, despite running ads in favor of its construction. The climate group NextGen Climate Action says it was notified at the last minute Tuesday night that a Washington, D.C. NBC station rejected its ad, submitted for President Obama’s appearance on the Tonight Show. A representative for the group suggested that the station may have bowed to oil corporate pressure in rejecting the ad and challenged the station to disavow that polluter interests played a role in the decision.

Aug. 8, 2010: President Obama greets First Lady Michelle Obama and daughter Sasha upon their arrival at a barbecue in celebration of his 49th birthday on the South Lawn of the White House (Photo by Pete Souza)

Aug. 8, 2010: President Obama sits with daughter Sasha during a barbecue with family and friends in celebration of his 49th birthday on the South Lawn of the White House (Photo by Pete Souza)

Aug. 8, 2010 – Pete Souza: “We were walking through a locker room at the University of Texas when White House Trip Director Marvin Nicholson stopped to weigh himself on a scale. Unbeknownst to him, the President was stepping on the back of the scale, as Marvin continued to slide the scale lever. Everyone but Marvin was in on the joke.”

Good Morning my beautiful Chips. A lovely morning to you and all of my TOD family members. Where is my beautiful family? It is a lovely sunny day in my part of the world. So thankful to be alive, although my legs are giving me the fits; I will still rise and stand.

Everyone have a great day. Now, I will take my time and go catch up on the reading. ((((( I love you all so dearly)))) Say a word of goodness for our wonderful president and his administration. Be kind and gentle also to your spirit.HZ

Good Morning jojo. Yes, the mornings are lovely. I am hoping that we can enjoy these lovely mornings and prepare our wallets for the remaining days of the month and Sept. I am hoping also for the fires to get under control. I have some friends out in one area, but they are coping just fine. We continue to send forth good thoughts to all who are in weather conditions that are causing some pain and heartache.

Let us remember our First Responders and and dedicated and hard working Fire Departments all over Cali. and all of our states. Keep them in our prayers and thoughts. We do not know what tomorrow holds, but we surely can try our best to do what we can this day.
() Keep going forth with goodness in our hearts, we must.

I love you all for keeping this beautiful space for all of us to support our president and to encourage and spread the good work that POB is doing for all of us. Thanks so much, Chips.HZ

Good afternoon Everybody!
FLOTUS’ work on “Let’s Move”, has been invaluable. The gratitude I have for her is truly immeasurable. Life is about to come full circle, and it’s really exciting to see what will happen.
We’ve got our Lion King and his Queen. :)

I watched LOD last night and his show was great. He shot down Julia Ioffe’s pro-Putin nonsense where she tried to pretend Putin is powerless in Russia and has no power to send Snowden back to the United States. Oh really? He’s also powerless against the disgusting anti-gay law? Lawrence called her out and she went on Twitter to whine.

As though that wasn’t delightful enough….Lawrence read Limbaugh for filth. For FILTH. It was wonderful to watch. First Lady Michelle Obama does deserve credit for the reduced obesity rates in the country. Let’s Move has contributed positively to helping people make serious life changes. Go FLOTUS!

I was astounded at that woman’s naïveté on LOD!! Surely she can’t believe that nonsense she was spouting! The man (Putin) is a virtual dictator. Opposition is destroyed. So many have left Russia because they know their lives are in danger And now he’s playing to the extreme conservatives with his crackdown on gays and lesbians. Lawrence looked incredulous and he would not allow her to get away her ridiculous claims .

Indeed, she wrote an article complaining about Lawrence – trying to play victim as though Lawrence was being so nasty to poor poor Julia. Meanwhile, in the same complaining article, she managed to get in a dig that the “Obama administration completely fucked this up” as if Obama or his administration were the ones who caused that punk Snowden to a job at Booz Allen and break the law in the first place.

I saw that woman Julia, and I was wondering were the heck did Lawrence did her up from? She sitting up there acting as if Putin was this little sweet heart who wasn’t in control of anything, but yet she found a way to blame POTUS for everything. I was glad Lawrence didn’t put up with her B.S.

Good morning TODers,
Congratz Almablanca!
Ms. Chips, good morning! Thank you the picture of the little girl and her family for Make A Wish. She is so cute and overwhelmed. What a day for her. I am so lad that our President was able to make it happen.

Carol, may the peace of God be with you and your family today. I pray that your love for each other strengthen and keep you I perfect peace.

You will have to make “Jacqueline” your middle name, thus adding 10 letters to your official signature. Or maybe that’s at confirmation. Uh … never mind! Little rusty. Don’t even know what “pressies” means. (Too much pressure on this old chick, too early in the mornin’.)

What is it you want Chips? Is the President and First Lady aware of the blessed event that happened ?? Years ago? :grin: August was a great month for great people to be born. I have nieces, nephew in law, brother in law, nephews, mother in law and a precious baby boy of my own. :grin:

Thanks. I thought we might have a NYC voter here. I’d rather be for somebody than against Weiner. We can only hope Christie will trip and go BOOM! That was just wrong, just wrong. SMH, teeheehee. :???:

Disgusting scumbags. I read John Lewis’s comments yesterday and in no way did he praise Snowden or pat him on the back for his actions. I’m glad he put out a statement to clear this up. Jerk move by The Guardian.

This despicable distortion is emblematic of how our MSM behaves, with the dimwitted emoprog Chris Hayes the first to jump on the #Snowdenwald bandwagon (stolen from last night’s thread).

Remember how all the major media couldn’t tweet fast enough the LIE that Harry Reid said Hillary would be a better President than Obama? CNN, ABC, TPM, PoliticalWire, etc. couldn’t be bothered to skim the TEXT of that Hill article which contradicted their lying headline.

I wonder what Hayes has to say about this now? (I received no response from him or any of his supporters.)

Indeed Arapaho – I checked his TL, and nary a peep from him about the congressman’s retraction. In fact even before the congressman put out the clarifying statement, I’m sure he must have read your tweet, along with mine, Bobfr’s and others, but did not see it fit to respond because he know he and the Guardian were not being honest.

Thanks, Hopefruit for always insisting that we not easily accept what’s being reported by the Obama hating media. You certainly were spot-on in insisting that a close read of the article (I’ve not read it) showed that the Guardian distorted what Rep. John Lewis said.

Thanks UT, for sharing this. I also thank Hopefruit who, after she read the article, told us last night that the Guardian distorted what Congressman John Lewis said. I also thank Bobfr who twitted the Congressman respectfully asking him to clarify what he said. It’s plainly obvious to me that most of the MSM are on a mission undermine and destroy President Obama. To accomplish their mission, they will lie, exaggerate and distort their so called news. I am grateful that Congressman John Lewis confirmed our faith and respect for him.

The top picture ALWAYS tugs at my heart and brings tears to my eyes, no matter how many times I see it. Frankly, old as I am, I think my own reaction to personally meeting President Obama would be similar.

By the way, LOD’s rewrite about Michelle Obama and limbaugh last night was masterful. He actually called rush “morbidly obese” which is the medical definition of rush’s condition.

Hard-hitting, yet poignant at the same time… the final frame, asking what he might look like now if he had heeded advice similar to Michelle Obama’s as a child.

I don’t know that I agree with @Lawrence on that point, though. Limbaugh grew up in the 1950s Midwest, when kids ran free all summer until dark. The childhood obesity problem as we now know it didn’t exist then.

“I never praised Mr. Snowden or said his actions rise to those of Mohandas Gandhi or other civil rights leaders. In fact, The Guardian itself agreed to retract the word “praise” from its headline.

“At the end of an interview about the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, I was asked what I thought about Mr. Snowden’s actions. I said he has a right as an individual to act according to the dictates of his conscience, but he must be prepared to pay the price for taking that action. In the movement, we were arrested, we went to jail, we were prepared to pay the price, even lose our lives if necessary. I cannot say and I did not say that what Mr. Snowden did is right. Others will be the judge of that.”

I’ve gotten so mistrustful of all newspapers and media outlets that I only read what you post on TOD. I may come across others, but I don’t like even retweeting them unless its super important news and then I’m still skeptical. So glad I found TOD. Boy was I ignorant even though I knew enough to support Pres Obama starting in 2004. Something’s are just women’s intuition.

CarolMaeWY, you took the words right out of my mouth (or fingertips). Chipsticks has no quota to fill, she does this for the love of our president and the love of our country. She works her booty off and so do the other blog tyrants here at TOD.

Yes I did this morning. I replied, but you might not have seen. Credit goes to Yardarm. He even mention it was for you. I just clicked the link and copied and posted a pic. I’m looking for her story, FUNDI. Might have found something. I love posting something meaningful to someone.

Why would Congressman Lewis even put himself in a position that his words needed to be clarified? I swear I just don’t get it, what is so hard about having President Obama’s back? When Clinton was President you never heard a peep out of these so called black leaders, but now every one of them has a freaking bullhorn and use it frequently and proudly.

All the blame belongs to the Guardian’s unethical reporting. The congressman’s words were as clear as day from the get-go. I only read the article once, and I immediately spotted the Guardian’s playing fast and loose games with what Rep Lewis actually said and what he was referring to.

I don’t know whether you read the discussion some of us had on TOD last night around 9PM. I am posting the link so you can see what we said. Bobfr then tweeted the congressman, asking him to clarify further what he meant since his words were being distorted by the Guardian.

I agree with HF. The blame lies clearly with the Guardian. The need for the pro-Snowden crowd to lie and misrepresent facts clearly shows that they know they are losing the argument. That stupid woman on LOD talking about how powerless Putin is in Russia is a great example of this. These far left emoprogs get more and more like the Tea Partiers everyday. I bet they are both financed by the same sources.

Like those who try harder to tell tales…..The truth is alway indisputable. Thanks Bobfr for you tireless tweets. Now rep John Lewis confirms his comments. GG, CHayes, etc…..They Lied. They are still lying.

Thanks for pointing this out, yardarm! Some of us oldies remember all these things when we were young. By the way, thanks for the link to those gorgeous and historical pics of “Black beauty.” I posted my thanks to you in the ungodly hours of the morning when I am sure you were in deep sleep.

On this date in 1974, Aug 8th, Richard M. Nixon penned his resignation from the Office of the Presidency. He left office 39 yrs ago 8-9-74. Ironically, Nixon was the last GOP POTUS who tried to govern as paranoid and as with criminally intent as he was.

I remember what I was doing when he made the announcement on TV. Thought it was fitting I was changing poopy diapers on my five month old son. Those were the days when Merv Griffin and another similar talk show host were on late mornings or early afternoons. Martha Mitchell was a frequent and delightful guest; former wife of Atty Gen. Mitchell. I didn’t want to do anything but hold Robby. Maybe he’s close in age to Chips?

Great story. Thank you for sharing. I was old enough to understand that Nixon, the president was leaving office and he did something bad. I remember the 8-9-74 departure well. He waved good bye. That I remembered.

Rep Lewis was diplomatically saying that Civil Rights heroes are willing to face the consequences of their actions – even if it means spending the rest of their lives in jail. Something that Snowden has NOT been willing to do. He was actually contrasting the cowardly Snowden with the courageous civil rights heroes.

It’s the Guardian who twisted his words to make it seem as though he was likening Snowden to MLK, etc. Anyone who read the quotes from Rep Lewis could see this was not true.

I think he was being interviewed for his reflections about the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington. The interviewer cleverly snack in a question about Snowden, and the Congressman answered in the abstract.

Yeah, you got that turn-of-a-phrase thing down, too. And I’m gonna laugh at that wounded weasel Cruz! He’ll be bleeding all over the dumbass teapartiers in ’16, if he lasts that long under the national strobe lights.

To Give POTUS and FLOTUS are just not done these days……ON TV yesterday…….on presented said: Michelle Obama is tweeting that she should get credit for the positive change. Excuse me? They would not even straight forwardly report a simple fact, correctly.

Ed Henry and now Benghazi. It was the Forte Hood. Then before that it was Snowden……why call on Fox? I wish Jay Carney would say: From now on, No more calling on Fox. They don’t even cover pres Obama when he is speaking to the Troops.